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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Going the other way!

As you know by now BBCOR bats are not as hot and explosive as bats in the past. Homerun numbers are down, teams are struggling to score runs. Batters are struggling to get on base or hit for power so now what.

Let's step back and change a few things as a hitter. You go up to the plate thinking about getting a hit. When the bats were hot we pulled the ball and hit it over the fence. I was never a big kid I am now 6'2" 150lbs. So as a kid I didn't hit homeruns. My whole career I hit one wind aided homerun. So I had to adjust. I worked on hitting the ball all over the field.

Some of the best hitters in the game work on hitting the ball to all parts of the field. John Kurk said, "when he was young he had to work on hitting the ball to the opposite field because his mom had a garden in right field in his back yard." If he bruised the tomatoes his mom gave him some bruises.

So how can we teach players to hit the ball the other way. You do not have to change anything with your swing. You do everything the same. You just have to let the ball get deep. Instead of hitting the ball in front of the plate you wait till the ball get closer to the middle of the plate keeping your hand in close to your body you hit the ball to the opposite field. We can use batting tees or hit-sticks to teach this point. Set the tee up deeper in the stance making it tough to pull this teach the hitter to push the ball to the opposite field. Hit-sticks can be held in the same position deeper in the batters stance. The batter again takes the same swing and the feed back from the swing you can have instance results.
If you want to teach a team to hit the ball the other way set it up like a game. Keep track of how many hits go the opposite way during batting practice and give the winner a tee shirt or baseball cards.

I am not saying to forget about pulling a baseball I am saying learn to hit the ball the other way to further your baseball career. Just like Kruk said if you keep hitting the ball in to the tomatoes you are going to get bruised. In baseball terms if you continue to hit the ball in to the shift of the defence you are going to keep getting out.